If you only have a digital watch, you can draw a circle on the ground, put a stick in the middle, use the shadow to pick the sun location (opposite of the shadow) and divide the circle in half there, then divide the circle in half at 90 degrees from that line, then divide those 4 sections into 3rds, giving you 12 hour points. You now have an oriented clock drawn on the ground. mark the hours starting with the original opposite-shadow point hour, then bisect between that hour and "twelve" on your dirt clock. Huzzah! South.
I thought he called it the Seiko Alchemist. So, you put the pseuds in this hole, the camp fuel in here, and the crystal comes out here. Ah, my hearing ain't what it used to be.
3:57 THANK YOU!! This is the information that every other video leaves out. They always tell you to bisect but they never clarify in which direction to bisect. This is important information!
Daylight savings time: use 1o'clock position instead of 12 on the watch, (northern hemisphere). Before or after noon: simply shortest distance to the 12 or 1o'clock position.
This is such a good video in so many ways. It is very refreshing seeing someone actually showing the functions of particular watches in their respective enviorment, but also just being outside apposed to filming on top of a boring desk. Nice one sir. Keep 'em coming!
So putting it all together if I understand... 1. Rotate your watch until the hour hand points in the exact opposite direction as your shadow. 2. Bisect the acute angle between 12 and the hour to find south. 3. If you are in the Southern Hemisphere, use 12 instead of the hour hand to start step 1. 4. During DST (generally applies Mar through Oct for North America, Europe and South Australia) use hour hand -1 (not hour hand) as applicable.
Actually, if you have paper and pencil or a nice piece of dirt and a stick to work with, you can use a digital watch. Simply transfer the digital readout to a partial analog clock face that you draw. But just have an analog watch. They're much classier.
If you have a 24 hour hand (like on a GMT watch) and it is showing your local time, it becomes easier. In the northern hemisphere, point the regular (12 hour) hour hand at the sun. The 24 hour hand will point north. In the Southern Hemisphere, point the 12 o’clock marker at the sun, the 24 hour hand will point south. The mathematics ends up being equivalent. The 24 hour dial is doing the bisection. If you are near the equator, just poke a stick in the ground and wait to see which way the sun is moving. It moves from East to West in the sky.
During daylight savings time bisect the angle between the hour hand and 1:00 pm. During daylight savings time we spring forward; so when the Sun was roughly due south at 12:00 noon during standard time, it’s now roughly due south at 1:00 pm during daylight savings time. I was an Assistant Scoutmaster and taught this trick, and I work at an astronomy museum. For any smart-ass comments about doing this trick at night, you don’t need a watch at night to find north. If you look for the Big Dipper you’ve got the handle and the bowl. If you take the two stars of the bowl farthest from the handle and draw a straight line, that line, from the “open end” of the bowl, points at the North Star, so you know where the north is. The Big Dipper is easy to see with city lights or even a Full Moon; and while the North Star isn’t a very bright star, it is still bright enough to be seen during a Full Moon. In the Southern Hemisphere at night there isn’t a “South Star”, but the constellation of the Southern Cross (Crux, the constellation on the flags of Australia and New Zealand) can be used to find south. The longest part of the long vertical beam of the cross points to the South Celestial Pole in the sky, and while there isn’t a South Star like a North Star, there’s a noticeably blank patch of sky with no significant stars at all. That’s south.
Good video. I learned this many years ago, and then I forgot it many years ago. I remembered that it could be done but I couldn't remember how. Now I know (again). Thank you.
Last time I heard the term “ Bisecting “ was back at Ft Benning during a land navigation course , intro level like Boot camp lol ,, I watched many channels on fellas trying to explain how to get a N point , from a watch bezel ,,nice job sir , I now have that skill set ,, just need to apply it ,, Tomm I will ride my bike 100 miles outside Las Vegas , with nothing , just a camel back , couple spare tires , a hand pump , my multitool and my Breitling Endurance,, plus my light ,,wish me luck coach .
I like your outfit showing that even a person unprepared for (or inexperienced in) navigation outdoors can find his way around using his only tool, his watch.
Just gotta say thanks for this video I never knew this was a possability. I'm gonna test it and practice some with a compass beside it. Thanks again really enjoying your videos.
I remember I learned this method when I was in the army. 😉 Another method is to look for a single standing tree. On its north side you are going to find more moss because moss likes to grow on wet places in the shade. And the north side never sees the sun...
M Skallywagg It’s because this method is not usable for any tree. It must be a single standing one. Not in a wood. And the method isn’t as correct as a compass.
@@sunZnotBull It’s not about bisecting, it’s about which side of the line is north and south. It’s not always the clockwise or counter clockwise where you determine the line you hit first is south or north. It depends on the time of the day
Thanks for the info. Here's a way I figured out how to do this without a watch. You touch your middle finger and your thumb together to form a circle on your right hand. Pretend that the fingernail on your middle finger is the top of the watch 12 noon. now place that circle on your left wrist with the middle finger where normally the 12 noon would be a watch on your wrist. So no you'll see on your middle finger that there's nuckle 1 nuckle 2 and the it joins your hand which is anothe indent in the finger which represents #3. So pretend that's circle is your wrist watch. And nuckle 1 is 1pm, n 2 is 2pm 3 is 3pm. Now Look up at the sun. Approximate where it is in the sky. Kind of of approximate what time of day it is. So you woke up in the morning, then after some time you're thinking it's later in the day, maybe 3pm. So you do the same thing, you rotate that 3'rd intend on your sort of fake watch toward the sun. Then inbetween that and your middle finger fingernail is South. It only gives you an approximation. But it's better than nothing and you don't need a watch.
Dude, it's just that if you face towards the sun, your left arm will be North, right arm will be South and behind you is West. (And just reverse it if it's evening, if it's eve and you're using a watch even then you will have to reverse the direction of where you're placing the "middle" or north direction of the watch.) WHY IS THIS SO HYPEDDDD
I've noticed that this and other similar videos are omitting something important. If it's after 6pm and the sun is still out, North and South along the bisect line become reversed. If it's 8:00pm and the sun is out (let's say setting), and you point the hour hand at the sun and bisect against "12" (like normal), what is South in the am is now North in the pm.
This seems really useful. Perhaps I'm a bit dense, but I'm still a little unclear on the AM/PM difference. You mentioned that it was 5:20 in your video. Was that AM or PM? Also, I once heard about a trick for finding the sun when it's very overcast. Might have been on another RU-vid channel. A thin object might not cast a shadow at all, but something wide and flat probably will. Hold the flat object (paper plate, knife blade, trapper keeper etc.) near a flat surface and turn it until the shadow disappears, and you know the sun is inline with the flat object.
This once saved my life in Afghanistan with my Seiko SKX..... Got me back to the FOB after an accident on a patrol... Not even joking. I relied on my SKX everyday in that shit hole, and I wear it everyday now, don't know if I can ever get rid of it. Also.... The Alpinist makes me want to go to Everest...
No, you didn't. Literally, none of this happened. I mean, I like the Citizen SKK. I bought my dad 15-20 years ago (white faced model), then a black faced one later because he liked it so much. No bullshit. Unlike the rest of your story.
Got it at the end. You kept going off track or I did but get it, thanks. I'm in the land down under so maybe north means north on the watch. I'll check it out with my compass. Oh hang on my watch is on order , I don't have one. 😁 Yet.
Great video, thanks for posting. If its 12 or 6 or clock would the bisect point be directly in line with the hour hand, or inversely depending on the time?
You can use a digital watch, but you'll need pencil & paper to do the analog watch stuff- or you can improves, if you know how to use the analog watch method well. OR... learn the stick method. I always take a compass when I go hiking,and I have a compass zipper-pull on each jacket and pack or sling pack.
Ok, so I now know where South is and if that's the direction I want to walk, I guess I try to find a landmark in that direction and walk towards it. East and West would be a bit harder to eyeball, but I guess it's doable. How do you determine a landmark behind you (i.e., North)?
Thinking of a compass: In the morning, the sun rises in the east. If you face east, north is to your left. In the afternoon if you face the direction the sun is setting, north will be on your right. Do you really need a watch to determine North?
I was just looking up what "Tachymeter" meant and now I'm learning my watch is also a compass?! I probably sound stupid as f*ck, but this is awesome. I'll be sure to remember this if I somehow get lost in the wilderness.
If I remember correctly, here in the southern hemisphere you take a match, place it on 12 and turn until the shadow forms a line from 12 to 6 (A lot more accurate than just pointing it to the sun) and then you bisect between the hour hand and the shadow line and you have true north.
Solar time is from 6am solar to 6pm solar. These hours don't have sixty minutes. So we really have to know sun rise and sunset times so as to take our watch to solar time and then we bisect the angle between hour hand and twelve. I believe that if we are in the southern hemisphere we are to consider that the bisected angle is pointing north instead of south?
I don't know what your selling but on a sunny day you can do the same planting a stick in the ground and plotting and bisecting the sun's shadow transit. One very important thing, you omit applying the equation of time varriation to the civil time before playing with your bisection. This is nothing new. While a boy scout some 50 years ago, I learned how to do this watch-compass thing from a German officer's handbook. Applying the equation of time varriation before you bisecting will take you to a more true compass bareing in either application. A Breguet 3477 is most suitable for surface and ocean navigation. If you really want to test out that Explorer, set to GMT andp take it on a voyage across the North Atlantic together with a brass sextant and the Air Almanac and sight reduction tables for the area - and leave your other junk home.
I'm in the Southern Hemisphere, so I use the 12 o'clock marker to point at the SUN then bisect COUNTER CLOCKWISE before noon then opposite after noontime.
So you mean to say is the acute angle between hour hand and 12 o close mark is facing south and the obtuse angle bisector will face north ?? What happend at 12.30 at noon ?? Gow do we say which one is south or north ?
How do you use that in the deep woods or desert? Great you know south and north but what happens if you don't know where the town is or what direction you came from?
You do realize during the summer if you're somewhere that uses DST you just need to set your watch back one hour to get an accurate reading, right? If your watch has jump hour setting it's stupid easy. You don't have to worry about losing your minute hand setting.
This is confusing. So it only works when it's not daylight saving time. I'm in Eastern Standard Time so this only works 4 months out of the year from the beginning of November to the beginning of March? Is there some way to figure it out for the other 8 months out of the year when it is daylight saving time?
Does the position of the sun during the day, change anything also, how do you now set your compass if you have one incase the sun goes down or it rains ?
If you point the hour hand towards the sun and it's at 5 pm, then just halve the distance and that will point south. No bezel needed. If it's 10 am, point the hour hand towards the sun, and the 12 o'clock position will point south. This only works if you can see the sun.
Brilliant! I knew you could use shadows to tell the time if you knew which way north is; stands to reason the opposite is possible too! It is very likely that I'll use this irl, since my current phone doesn't have a compass. Thanks :)
To determine true north, you only need a bit of imagination and a method to determine the real time at where you are. Imagine a clock face with numbers from 1 to 24 (easier if you double the numbers on a real watch). Then you have to determine the real time, i.e. deduct 1 hour for daylight saving time and adjust the "official" time for the sun time at your place. the official time can be way off (e.g. in Western Spain as much as 1 1/2 hours, so when you are in the summer in Santiago de Compostela and your timepiece shows 13:00 hrs, the real sun time is 10:30 hrs.). Find that time on your imaginary or real watch face and point it to the sun. 24 points then to north/12 to south because at midnight the sun is in the north (under horizon), and at noon it is in the south. Easy as that!
Here is my normal watch a rolex and on that note will just use my human survival homeing beacon wait till nigjt time and walk north south east or west useing the north star as a point of reference
Or you can just keep walking while keeping the sun off the front tip of your right shoulder at all times which essentially has you travelling generally south while Joe which is miles behind you, still fooling with his watches.
Would't it be more accurate to use a stick to see the shadow,for mentioned accuracy?, (instead of eyeballing it/destroying your eyes by looking towards the sun?) It's always best to assume the worst that you (for some odd reason) don't carry sunglasses out in the wild.
So, to simplify, if all else is forgotten: In the northern hemisphere, the sun remains in the southern sky, and reaches its apex at 12 noon. So if you look at your watch around noon, expect the sun to be almost due south. I guess you don't need to remember much more. And if you forget your watch, just track the suns movement, as it moves from east to west during the day. When it is as high as it gets, it is about noon. Not hard to remember.
Since you are estimating direction without a compass, you don't even need a watch. Northern hemisphere, sun rises in the east, sets in the west. Just by knowing NSWE on a compass, you can easily know which way is which, even without a watch, so what's the point?
HELP I'm lost in the rocky mountains in north america. I have a watch and data on my phone but I don't know what hemisphere I'm in. Send a cartographer please!
Actually, you can use the digital watch, if you have a pen and paper. What you do is take the time from the digital watch, and transfer it to the drawing you make one an analog watch on the paper, then do the rest as you instruct here. 👍
